


Armistice

by Fierceawakening



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-01 10:44:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18334028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fierceawakening/pseuds/Fierceawakening
Summary: ...If Megatron has to lose, this is what losing should look like for him, dammit.





	Armistice

**Author's Note:**

> not even betaed but here y’all go

Peace was harder than Optimus expected.

He walked among the Vehicons when he could. Which meant when they let him. He towered over them in his new frame, taller and broader even than Megatron, and they shrank from him as he passed.

They were grateful for the end of the war, as grateful as his Autobots. Or more—they’d died by the score, and now none of them need fear a mech wearing the wrong insignia.

But they still shrank from him, and his spark seized. Sometimes he yearned for his old body, small and light. In that frame he would be no threat.

They spoke even less often. Conversations would end as soon as they saw him approach.

Reasonable. He’d been their greatest enemy. But eons before that he’d been a librarian, monitored the Grid, catalogued the noise of life. This awed and fearful silence troubled him. Almost enough to keep him in Iacon, where he never need see the faces of the vanquished.

But a librarian knew how to hear and how to see. And sometimes they spoke even as he passed, and sometimes he heard them.

The things they said were not the things he knew.

They whispered about Autobots the way they whispered about him. Fearsome destroyers. War-makers.

It made the other Autobots angry. Hadn’t Megatron been the warmonger? Rejecting the Council’s offer of peace just because he wanted war? Giving up on the chance to change the government he hated just because he wanted to lead it?

Or just because he wanted to spill energon, and a peaceful transition wouldn’t let him. They said that too.

Optimus frowned, and a crowd of purple-painted Vehicons parted to let him pass. One shuddered.

Still painted in Megatron’s colors, even now. Only a few of them had chosen to repaint themselves, from rich purple to yellow or green or blue. Optimus should have liked seeing it. But they stuck out in the crowd, a bright incongruous flash of color, and the others avoided them.

Like they avoided him. He’d mentioned it to Ratchet, and Ratchet had grumbled something about still being frightened of Megatron even though Megatron had lost and the true Prime had forgiven them all.

Watching them now, Optimus doubted it. Ratchet wasn’t the one who’d loved Megatron all those years ago. He wouldn’t have recognized it if he saw it.

Optimus shouldn’t have either. The Megatronus he knew was buried under eons of jealousy and bitterness and hate. He’d been surprised that Megatron had surrendered rather than died, still snarling and cursing the mech who’d once been his friend.

Which was why Optimus had to see him now. Had to understand. He owed Megatron that much.

The Vehicons around him were a sea of purple, its luster dulled by dust and war and age. And something in Optimus’ spark kindled to it, even now. Why were there so many of them? Why had so few chosen to abandon that color? They’d even refused new paint, as though something was wrong with paint mixed by Autobots.

And even the repainted few who caught his optics looked away after only a moment.

If he’d been Megatron, he would have understood it. A conqueror, walking among the vanquished.

If he’d been Megatron, those mechs would be dead. Or hiding behind purple paint. And yet.

They’d turned to watch him. None dared come close. But even those who’d cringed away from him were looking at him now, their visors flickering, their heads tilted.

They didn’t move to stop him. He’d won. They didn’t dare.

But now the buzzing static of their voices followed him, their accents thick from years of separation. The high trill of Vos, the clipped diction of Polyhex, the rough burr of Kaon.

They all stared. He caught Megatron’s name in their noise.

“Yes, I am going to see Megatron,” he said to one of them, a dented and scratched purple one who hadn’t seen polish in an age. He wondered why.

He heard the click of a limb moving, the hollow shudder of a transformation beginning but not finishing. He looked down at the mech’s arm to see the plating there half-shifted, the hand retracted up into the wrist but nothing emerging after it.

“You meant to draw a weapon,” Optimus marveled.

Now that the war was over, they couldn’t. Their weapons systems had been stripped from them. A precaution, in case Megatron didn’t keep his word.

In case this truce was another lie.

The crowd shrank away from Optimus. He still had the weapons the Matrix had given him, though he hadn’t powered them up in months and felt honestly relieved to keep them dormant.

“You don’t deserve to speak with him,” the battered old Vehicon said.

Woe to the conquered. Megatron would think that way. Optimus felt long-dormant systems activate at the thought. He powered them down, sighed, and bowed his head, hoping it made him less threatening.

“And you can’t speak that way to Cybertron’s true Prime!” cried another Vehicon, bright in green paint that reminded Optimus of Bulkhead’s.

She barreled toward the older-looking mech, who squared his stance and held his ground.

Optimus stepped between them. He might not have been a warrior anymore, but his frame was still big, and could take any punishment defanged ex-Decepticons might hurl at it. “Easy. I only want to talk with him.”

The green Vehicon withdrew, still glaring, her frame all coiled energy.

The older one—no, he only looks older, he needs repainting and polishing, perhaps even repair—didn’t make a move. Optimus offered silent thanks to Primus.

“I can still say what I want,” the battered purple mech said. “Isn’t that what you Autobots told us?”

You Autobots. Not we. Optimus sighed. “It is. It was a condition of the truce. You are free to speak your mind, as anyone else is.”

“Then I say you should leave well enough alone. Just because you beat us doesn’t mean you belong here.”

Heads turned his way, purple and red and every color between. Their visors all glowed red. Optimus tensed. These were Megatron’s people, or at least they had been. Even the ones who’d remade themselves had been constructed in his service. What would he do now, surrounded by enemies?

Optimus squared his shoulders. Megatron would fight.

But I wouldn’t. Optimus lowered his head again. “You may speak as you wish, yes. That I agreed to. That I would have allowed even if Megatron hadn’t asked of me.”

They tilted their heads at him. Did they not understand, or did they not believe him?

“But I want to talk with Megatron, and I mean to see him now.” He raised his head and looked at them. “Do not hinder me.”

The glow of optics burned into him, as if their heat could melt his plating. The battered purple mech clenched his hands into fists but made no other move. Optimus kept walking.

###

“Old friend,” Optimus said as the doors clanged shut behind him.

Megatron wasn’t looking at him. He sat on the same throne he always had, as though he’d never lost a war. And that was turned away, toward a massive window.

Cybertron sprawled out beyond it, the world’s metal bright and glittering, as if everything on it had just been newly made.

Which it had. Optimus cycled a sigh and studied the patterns on the throne”s back, a jagged array of points and edges. It didn’t gleam like the planet did, but it did catch the light and reflect it, fiery reds and bright purples that reminded Optimus of tainted energon.

Of the Chaos Bringer’s blood.

Optimus cleared his intake, a little too loudly, and waited. He’d announced himself. Even Megatron couldn’t be rude enough to ignore him. Not after he’d lost and everyone knew it.

The throne swiveled to face him, its motion slow and heavy. Optimus stifled a smile. Megatron had always liked grand gestures, and now that peace had come again, some part of Optimus could pretend it was his old friend just being dramatic.

Megatron didn’t look like he had lost. He sat on his throne, ramrod-straight, his frame dented but polished with more care than Optimus had seen in an age. His optics shone, bright red like the Vehicons’ visors.

His arms were bare, devoid of weapons. The massive cannon he’d once worn on his right arm was gone. When he’d surrendered it, the Autobots had melted it down.

Nothing new would be forged from that metal. Optimus himself had made sure of it.

The mark on his chest, symbol of his followers, hadn’t been removed. The Autobots had allowed him that, at least. He’d chosen instead to scratch it out with his own claws, the scars deep and ugly. Between them the old insignia peeked, still richly painted against his plain silver metal.

It’s not gone, is it? Not when those scraps remain.

“Prime,” Megatron said, and looked him over.

Optimus’s spark seized. Megatron had never called him that. Through all the long eons of war, it had always been Optimus. Optimus Prime, maybe, when he felt like mocking his friend turned enemy. But not Prime. Never that. Megatron had wanted that title for himself, and the Council and the Matrix alike had given it to Optimus instead.

“I would speak with you.” Optimus took a step toward the throne.

“I cannot stop you.”

Optimus hesitated. Megatron laughed. Optimus hoped for warmth in it but heard none. Was Megatron still sneering at him, or was he hearing his own shame?

Megatron’s clawed fingers curled, beckoning. “Nor would I, if I could. I know why you’re here.”

“They wear your colors still.”

“They do. Does that surprise you?”

Did it? It should. Megatron had thrown them into battle by the thousands and not cared how many lived or died. “Your people have always hated shame,” he said at last.

Megatron shook his head. “You’re the same as you always were, under all that plating that the Matrix reinforced for you. You answer your own questions and don’t realize that you’re doing it.”

“Your greed killed Cybertron, Megatron. Our homeworld and theirs.”

“Greed?” Megatron’s lip plate curled. Optimus stared at it, polished and rusted and polished again. “Is that what you call it?”

“You murdered the Council in their hall. You went to war against me, old friend. Not against them.”

“Against what they’d made you into, old friend.”

“Then you dragged all these mechs into it after you. Even though your true enemies were dead.” Optimus looked past the throne, at the gleaming world beyond. A world Megatron had shattered, and Optimus and his Autobots had revived. “What am I to call that, if not greed?”

“Dragged them into it? Why do you think they followed me, Optimus?”

“I do not know. Once, you inspired them. Once, you inspired me. But then you chose war. Millenia of war, when there was no need.”

“Your mechs follow you because you are their Prime. Because they have been told since their sparks were first laid in the frames that would house them that Cybertron’s true Prime would be found and would lead them someday.”

“Megatron, I don’t think I am anything more than—"

Megatron held up a hand. “But they do, Optimus. They see you as a savior, come striding out of legend to offer them paradise.” His smile twisted, and he barked a sharp little laugh. “And I suppose you did. Did you know what it would cost you, old friend?”

“No,” Optimus admitted, his voice soft. Was Megatron just trying to hurt him now? He growled, glad his faceplate hid it. Would he be able to resist cutting words if he’d just lost the war himself?

“And I did. But that isn’t the point. The point is the Autobots follow you because they must. Why wouldn’t they?”

Optimus shook his head. But it wasn’t the first time arguing with Megatron had gotten him nowhere. And whatever Megatron had said about not minding this talk, he and the Vehicons were right. Megatron had no right to refuse Optimus entry here, not anymore. He was a captive audience.

And that meant Optimus could insist, if he wanted, and Megatron would eventually have to let him. “Very well,” Optimus said.

“But why do they follow me? Why now, when Cybertron was restored by your hand and not by mine?”

Optimus shuttered his optics, tried to remember the world as it once had been. “When I was young, and did not know your full intent… I followed you because I admired you.”

“You knew my intent from the beginning, old friend. You refused to believe it because you didn’t want to.”

“You lied to me. To all of us.”

“I let you believe what you wanted to believe about me. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Optimus opened his optics again. This old mech—scarred yet gleaming, a symbol he’d claimed for himself torn through by his own claws—was the person he was talking to now. Not the mech he once had been.

Or had never been, if Megatron was telling the truth now. He had no reason to lie.

Optimus thought of the purple-painted mechs he’d passed on the way in. He has reasons to lie. He has hundreds of them.

“I admired you because…” Optimus hesitated. “I admired you because I believed you had a vision. A vision of Cybertron where no one need be oppressed, where no mech need to submit to another, simply because…”

He trailed off. Megatron was a captive audience.

“They wear my colors because they wish to,” Megatron said. Too quietly. Optimus winced, wishing he would yell, or rage, or attack.

“I have seen it.”

“And you don’t understand it.”

“They were starving, Megatron. They died by the thousands. Simply so you could pursue me.”

Megatron growled low in his chassis. His clawed hands clutched at the armrests of his throne. Optimus’s systems answered it, thrilling with an old energy. Optimus cursed himself inwardly but didn’t power them back down.

Megatron laughed like he’d noticed it. “Did you think that just because a war is over, everyone changes their minds?”

“Of course not! I know you see me as naïve, old friend, but I am no fool.”

“Then what are you expecting of them? That they change their colors for you just because you won?” Megatron laughed again, his optics flickering.

“We showed them mercy. You would not have done the same for us.”

“No. I wouldn’t have. I would have torn the Matrix from your chest and left it on display for your people to see.”

“Megatron… don’t.”

Megatron’s optics dimmed. “If you insist on letting me live, Prime, someday I will tell you the rest of it.”

“Simply to cause me pain?”

“Is it the Matrix or your own mind that tells you that’s why I would do it? You don’t know me as well as you think, old friend. You never did.”

“Megatron—”

“Tell me something. Do you think my mechs wanted your mercy?”

“I do not think they wanted death. Or enslavement. Freedom is—”

“—the right of all sentient beings. You stole that one from me, as I recall.”

“You said it, and I believed it. And you believed it yourself, once. Before all this.” A bright, pure anger flickered through Optimus’s systems. “Before your jealousy and rage consumed you.”

“I said it, yes. You took it from me.”

“I spread your speeches, as you wished.”

“You took it from me, knowing it would sound more palatable from a librarian’s mouth. But, librarian, you never bothered to ask what it meant.”

“It means all beings deserve freedom. Even our enemies.”

“Yes.”

Optimus looked up, expecting to see Megatron’s lip plates curl. But his old friend’s face was grave.

“Then why this age of war, Megatron? Why this eon of destruction?”

Megatron rose to his feet. Optimus shifted his weight, wary, but Megatron turned away and walked toward the window instead. “Let us see, Prime, the world you’ve built up from its ashes.”

Optimus followed him to the window.

Cybertron gleamed. The metal expanse glittered, polished to a perfect shine by no mortal hand. Even here in the land of the vanquished, the metal gleamed with a blue tinge, richer with deposits of energon than anything Optimus had ever seen.

“It’s beautiful,” he said.

“Is it?” Megatron asked. “Is this the freedom that your people wanted?”

“It is.”

“Is this the freedom that my people wanted?”

“You wanted to win, Megatron. I do not know what they wanted.”

Megatron growled low in his chassis. “Is that so?” Optimus glanced at him and saw that he’d curled his hands into fists at his sides.

“I walked among them, but I did not know what they wanted.”

Megatron barked a sharp laugh. “I suppose not. Even though it was obvious.”

“Was it, Megatron? They followed you to war when they were already free.”

“There you go again, Prime. Saying you knew them, when you did not.”

“Then tell me what you know, Megatron. Why in spite of your cruelty they still revere you.”

“Look at it, Optimus. At your shining world.” He waved a hand at the window, a showman’s flourish. “Is that the freedom that my people wanted? The freedom to paint themselves in an enemy’s colors and polish themselves until they gleam?”

“I was never their enemy, Megatron.”

Megatron shook his head, his optics wide. “No... I don’t suppose you thought you were.”

Optimus’s spark seized. A chill spread through his circuitry. He stared out the window, seeing only a sea of purple. “Then it’s not fear that makes them wear your colors still.”

“For some it is.” Megatron chuckled. “But I have not demanded it.”

Optimus cycled air through his circuits. “Then we are still enemies.”

A low growl rose from Megatron’s frame. “No war is ever over, Prime. Not as long as the enemy still lives.”

“Then it’s true what mechs like Ratchet say about you.” Optimus stepped back from the window, staring at nothing, seeing old memories. “You never meant to negotiate that day in the Council hall. You meant to slaughter them all where they stood.” He clenched his hands at his sides. Into fists, just like Megatron’s.

“Don’t look so surprised, old friend. I slew mechs for far less every night in the Pits.”

“You wanted death. Death for them all.”

“I was a revolutionary. I still am. You were the one who didn’t understand what it meant.”

“You surrendered. The war ended.”

“I agreed to a truce. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Then you will oppose us again.”

Megatron turned. His scarred mouth curled into the kind of grin Optimus almost remembered from a time before pain. “If you truly meant to end this… and any sense in your processor hadn’t been melted away by your soft spark, you would have killed me when you had the chance.”

Optimus forced the word from a cold throat that had locked tight. “Why?”

“Because they still wear purple, Optimus. Because they still believe in what I told them.” Megatron turned back to the window. “And told you, an age ago.”

“Then you’d do this, start this all over someday…” He waved at his own frame, his impossible size, the weapons the Matrix had grafted onto them, weapons he’d never wanted to use. “…For them?” He moved closer to the window, looked out at the scratched and dented purple frames in the crowd.

“For myself. And for the reflection of myself that I see in them. And what they see of themselves in me.”

“I cannot do this again. And neither can you.”

Megatron shook his head again. “Not now, no. Not yet. But if you hope to fix this, Orion Pax, look with your own optics. Not the ones your Matrix gave you. See them, as they are. Offer them what I promised. Not what you hope they want.”

“And you think—“ Optimus’s optics flickered—“you think there is a chance for lasting peace, if I do this?”

Megatron snorted, a sound somewhere between a challenge and a laugh. “I think you are a fool, and the Council played into it, and the Matrix keeps you foolish.”

“Then there truly is no—“

“I think you value peace too much. Hold it up as an ideal but do not ask yourself what struggles seethe beneath it.”

He stepped toward Optimus. The light gleamed on his polished frame. But half the scars that crisscrossed the plating, Optimus himself had left there. And the scar in the middle of Megatron’s chest he’d made himself. At Optimus’s prompting.

Megatron chuckled again. “But if the peace you want is possible, old friend… you are one of the few mechs who could bring it into being.”

“You honor me.”

“Don’t say that yet.”

”True peace is my greatest hope.”

”Your hope is impossible until you see Cybertron as it is. As it was, when you told yourself what my words meant and hoped that I believed them.”

He walked back to his throne and sat down. Optimus waited, but he said nothing more. He sat like a statue built of lifeless metal, watching with bright optics but not moving. Then, slowly, the throne began to turn back toward the window.

“I understand,” Optimus said to Megatron’s back, and bowed even though Megatron wouldn’t see it.

Do you understand? Was it his own thought, or something in Megatron’s expression? He turned away, not waiting for the room to tell him.

The doors opened in front of him and he stepped through them, the bright light of the new Cybertron swallowing him up.


End file.
